The global launch for the 21st installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe represents the biggest ever for a female-fronted film — surpassing 2017’s live-action Beauty and the Beast ($357 million) — as well as the second-largest for any superhero movie behind last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War” ($640.5 million). Overall, it’s the sixth-best worldwide debut of all time, and the international opening of $302 million is the fifth-biggest ever ahead of 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($281 million).

“While female protagonists rebounded last year, slightly besting the previous high achieved in 2016, the percentages of females as speaking characters and major characters remained relatively stagnant. Protagonists are the characters from whose perspective the story is told and so seeing more females in these roles is tremendously important. However, we are not seeing similar gains in the broader populations of major characters and in all speaking roles.”

The record number of wins in 2019 was a welcome turnaround after just six women earned Oscars at last year’s ceremony, compared with 33 male winners. That’s little more than 15 percent. It was the lowest number of female winners since 2012’s show, when only four women took home Academy Awards.

Netflix has announced that it has entered into a multi-year overall deal with Darla K. Anderson, the Academy Award-, Golden Globe- and BAFTA-winning producer of Disney/Pixar hits like “Coco,” “Cars” and “Toy Story 3.” At Netflix, Anderson will develop and produce new animated and live action projects, both feature films and series, for family audiences around the world, according to a news release.

As the Women’s Media Center’s Investigation 2019: Gender and Non-Acting Oscar Nominations found, women are, again, largely missing from the picture, with men receiving 75 percent of the nominations for the 91st Academy Awards, which will be handed up Feb. 24.

PARK CITY, Utah – During the “Making the (In)visible: Radical Transparency in the Data-Driven Age” panel at the Sundance Film Festival, Dr. Stacy L. Smith from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative announced the “4% Challenge,” which urges filmmakers to make a commitment work with a female director — especially a female director of color — within 18 months.

Teen stars Marsai Martin, the vivacious 14-year-old who plays sassy Diane on the ABC sitcom “Black-ish” and Millie Bobby Brown, the charismatic 14-year-old Brit who embodies the superpowered Eleven on Netflix’s sci-fi horror series “Stranger Things,” are taking on the role of film producers.

The post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama “Bird Box” has set a record in its debut, and with the Netflix original film boasting both a woman director and a female lead, it’s more evidence that the streaming service is destined and determined to shake up the film industry.

A survey of the top 250 films of 2018 at the domestic box office found that women made up only 8 percent of directors, a number that was down 3 percentage points from the 11 percent in 2017, according to The Hollywood Reporter, citing the 21st annual The Celluloid Ceiling study by Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.

“If Beale Street Could Talk” star Regina King won best supporting actress in a feature film during Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards, and she used her time at the podium to advocate for more women in film. King declared, “I’m going to use my platform to say that in the next two years, everything I produce is going to be 50 percent women.”

Davis said, “my big thing with JuVee Productions is there is no limit to how we see narratives for people of color — that there’s only so much that I’m going to kowtow to this business. My gift to anyone is that. Don’t let anybody tell you who you are. … This is my fist pump. This is my drop the mic. This is me.”

“I think some of the criticism about ‘Oh, is she unlikable? Is she unsympathetic?’ feels really misplaced to me. It feels like it has more to do with the way we as a society think about who and what a mother should be and what a wife should be than it is really about this character,” screenwriter Zoe Kazan said of the main female character in “Wildlife.”

There is good news and bad news for women with the nominations for the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards. Once again, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has shut out female directors. No female helmers are nominated for best director for the 2019 Golden Globes. There’s a little bit of good news as far as a couple of historic nominations for women.

Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios has given the green light to “We Real Cool,” an urban action comedy from “Dear White People” producer Effie T. Brown, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We Real Cool” will mark the feature debut of Melissa V. Murray, a graduate of the Ghetto Film School and a Sundance Ignite Fellow alumnus, who will direct from her own script.

Among the story lines as we await the 2019 Academy Awrd nominations: Will the blockbuster romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians” give Michelle Yeoh (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) her long-awaited shot at an Academy Award? If Yeoh gets a supporting actress nod this year, she will be only the sixth actress of Asian descent ever to be nominated in the history of the Academy, according to Deadline Hollywood.

The Oscar winner (“Mighty Aphrodite”) was one of the first to come forward with allegations of abuse against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, and her resilience has not wavered. She said she wants to work with students — from grade school to high school — to make them understand consent and their physical rights.

According to the BBC, 209 critics sent in their 10 greatest foreign-language films for the poll. Of these respondents, 94 were women – 45 percent –yet there are only four female directors of titles in the top 100: Chantal Akerman (“Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels”), Claire Denis (“Beau Travail”), Agnès Varda (“Cleo from 5 to 7”), and Katia Lund (co-director of “City of God”).

Following the blockbuster success of the romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians” – it surpassed its $30 million budget on its opening weekend and has far made more than $226 million at the worldwide box office so far – Asian women finally are getting quality film roles both in front of and behind the camera.

The deal has been deemed as “one-of-a-kind” agreement by Lionsgate. The development and production deal offers Kemp and her End of Episode shingle the opportunity to expand the “Power” franchise with potential spinoffs among a number of commitments by Starz. Additionally, the deal encompasses other projects for Lionsgate to take to market for Kemp on a multitude of platforms.

ABC Studios is producing a new documentary series titled “Ink & Paint” that will sketch out an often-overlooked chapter in the history of Disney’s animation empire: the vital role that the Mouse House’s workforce of women played in creating its classic films. The goal is for “Ink & Paint” to be ready for Disney’s own streaming platform launch in late 2019.

“We decided to rise up and scream at the top of our lungs and become a chorus of rebels that won’t be treated like second class citizens,” Lena Waithe said at Variety’s Power of Women, presented by Lifetime on Friday. “We can’t afford to go back.”

A decade after Catherine Hardwicke shattered records for female directors with the global success of the fantasy franchise-launching romantic drama “Twilight,” the director says there’s still not enough women working behind the camera. “There’s still a lot of work to do because we’ve got to get to both sides of the camera; we’ve got to […]

Determined to rule as much more than a figurehead, Mary asserts her claim to the English throne, threatening Elizabeth’s sovereignty. Betrayal, rebellion and conspiracies within each court imperil both thrones — and change the course of history. “Mary Queen of Scots” is due in theaters Dec. 7.

Excerpt: Olivia Munn has again weathered the storm of speaking out against sexual misconduct. It’s been a whirlwind week or so for the actor after she went public about her choice to speak out when she learned that an actor with a small role on her new film “The Predator” is a registered sex offender.